


Wounded

by orphan_account



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Loyalty, M/M, Will is a loyal mongoose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1671404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Hannibal kink meme, for this lovely prompt: http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/3819.html?thread=7065579#cmt7065579</p><p>Hannibal doubted Will, but now he's sure. In all his possessive, psychopathic sweetness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wounded

He hadn’t dared to sedate Will before they reached the safehouse. They weren’t in the clear yet, and any painkiller that dulled the reactions could have proven lethal. Will had been so brave. He was pale and shivering with blood loss, teeth grit against the pain, but he’d done his best to stay conscious, to breathe when Hannibal told him to breathe and to keep putting pressure on his wounded leg.

“That’s the second time Jack’s shot me.” Will’s voice had been rough with pain.

“I’m removing him from my Christmas card list.”

He earned a rough bark of laughter for that. He smiled. It was reassuring to hear.

“The first time he shot you, he was defending me. This time, he was attempting to kill me.”

“Well.” Will’s hand rested on his arm. “Then he’d be off _my_ Christmas card list.”

“Keep applying pressure.” He firmly moved Will’s hand back to his own thigh. “I won’t have you dying in my car.”

“Yes, Sir.”

***

He’d had to carry Will from the car. His usual cool in a crisis hadn’t deserted him. He hid their tracks and mended the wound with steady hands and unclouded focus. But there was something on the edge of his consciousness, coloring his thought, lending a greater urgency to his work than he’d felt before. A heaviness in his heart.

Once Will was clean, stitched and bandaged, drugged and resting comfortably with his leg elevated, Hannibal had time to recognize the feeling’s source.

He could not have borne to lose Will. It was a troubling thought. Throughout their courtship, there had been contingency plans, many paths all leading to different acceptable conclusions. Will grows stronger, or breaks. Will is a lover, or a nemesis. Will lives, or kills Hannibal, or dies by his hand. He could maintain his equanimity because fate could not harm him.

But now, he knew that if Will left him, it would be shattering. He could count on one hand the people to whom he felt such an attachment, and most of them had been ripped from him already.

He readied an IV drip of saline. There was no way to keep blood on the premises; it was too closely tracked. And storing a ‘donor’s’ or his own would have made the FBI’s work far too easy. But the least he could do was keep Will hydrated.

Still, this new attachment was not all weakness. He knew the strength he could bring to bear when one of his own was threatened. And he now had Will at his side as a partner, an ally and a certainty. A... a _protector_.

His heart tightened painfully with tenderness, pulsed with the joy of new certainty.

Will made a soft noise when the needle slipped in.

“Shh, shh.” Hannibal stroked his hair to soothe him. He taped the line in place and covered him with a blanket, tucking it around him securely.

“There is nothing but to wait, for now,” he said, sitting at Will’s bedside and holding one of his hands gently in his. “Soon it will be safe to leave.” He checked the pulse at his wrist. It was steady and strong, better than only minutes before. He smiled and kissed Will’s hand. “Rest.”

***

Will came around slowly. His eyes were red when they opened, and unfocused. Hannibal was still at his side, watching over him with a calm expression. He smoothed the hair from Will’s forehead.

“How much do you remember?” he asked.

“Jack. Shot. Christmas cards.” He looked around dazedly. His color had improved. He was now several shades away from the sheet he was resting on. “Where are we?”

“West Virginia. Several miles from the nearest building or paved road. We are safe.”

Will nodded and lay back on the pillow.

“I owe you my thanks. It is rare for someone to defend me.” Hannibal’s voice was soft. Despite his determination, it was surprisingly difficult to say. “Rarer still one who knows who I am.”

Will’s smile was lovely, opiate-slowed though it was. “So I’m your knight in shining armor?”

Hannibal cradled Will’s head in his hand, put a cup of tea to his lips. The shock had abated. It was safe to administer fluids. “And I the gentle maiden to tend your wounds.”

Will drank from his hand. Strong and hardened from the asylum, hurt by suspicion and betrayal, it was no matter. He belonged to Hannibal, a predator tame to only one master. His to love, his to tend and care for, his, finally, to trust.

“Dear Will,” he murmured. He replaced the cup with his lips, and Will drank as eagerly.


End file.
